a self pieced together from a series of dimly remembered snapshots partially revealing reflections captured at times not remembered through teeth that may or may not have been there, or were constantly shifting, and so on, then finally recalibrated in an achievement that would seem remarkable to an omniscient onlooker

I've had "oh damn, I'm naked in public" dreams and "how did I end up on the crapper with all these people watching?" dreams but this was new:

It was too dark to see much of anything at first. Then some black and pink craters lined up in a row. I'm inside my own mouth? Oh Christ, where did my teeth go? I look deep into one pit and at the bottom, deep down, there's something small and white. A tooth? Is it trying to come back up or is it taking its last breath before sinking into oblivion? Fuck. Can I bring it up with my will power? Fuck. Can anyone see this, my shame? This is the end. I have no teeth! (I read somewhere that playing video games helps you control your own dreams. I've done it before.) There's a light, that's the outside. Are my front teeth OK? Oh, thank Jesus, they are. (I did that!) Maybe nobody will see what's back here...

I had another dream the next night, or was I just drunk? -- yes, the latter -- that I left a comment at the blog of the king of anarchotopia in some bitter tone, annoyed by what would seem to anyone but me to be nothing, specifically a lament over wasted DNA, that reminded me of a post by the king about an artist's suicide that drew a sentiment to this effect: "He was a phony, a waste of talent -- good riddance!" That motherfucker failed to entertain us! He deserved to die! Like he has some use-value for us and it's absolute. And, well, that got me thinking about how the king's genius fetishism, among other problems, is propped up by the notion that what matters is how fast the fastest sprinter is in absolute terms when in fact what humans want to know is who's fastest in relative terms. Not to their credit, mind you, that's just an observation. If it took the fastest humans 20 seconds to run 100 meters, we'd still watch. So I'm thinking about art at that point and realize only afterwards that I may have left myself open to some attack along the lines of "it's not about art, he was a computer genius, you moron, etc!" or possibly something else but I can't remember what I typed, honestly, so I can't cover all the gaps in my front teeth and I won't go back there, back inside, that is, to figure it out. A bunch of sharks over there, with sharp teeth, like mine. No thanks...

And hey, is anyone looking? Of course not. Thank God...

Though sometimes I want them to look...

I don't like seeing myself on camera or hearing my recorded voice. It's somewhat relieving to relearn that I appear as an object to other people but on the other hand, I don't appear as God, which is tragically, indescribably disappointing...

Speaking of which, a student was telling me today about her visit to a church in the U.S. years ago and in the process of trying to ascertain whether it was a Catholic Church, I mentioned how the Catholics love Mary and how her virginity is a big part of the appeal.   Now a perfect woman doesn't want to have sex with anyone but me. Her desire for someone else would suggest that her desire for me does not entirely possess her. It exposes her love as phony. But a 12 year-old boy doesn't know how to even imagine having sex so we have to have imaginary sex. Or maybe it's more about the need for purity, that if she touches me, she's dirtied by me, and then her judgments are worthless. She becomes a whore. Anyway, I'm God. Look at these fucking pearly whites...

But a Protestant friend, not so long ago, apologized vigorously for hours for sending vomit through his teeth earlier in the evening. "Nobody cares, man, stop hitting yourself in the head," I said, rubbing his back. An unbelievably excellent dude, this guy, for real, but they'd gotten to him too...

Digital love, the approval of strangers, bloghits, facebook likes. What kind of person cares?...

Do you like the dot dot dot thing? I was thinking of doing bullets. Does this work?...

I imagine a community in which kids aren't raised to impress adults, in which their value as little opera singers is not the quantifiable, objective judgment of God. Maybe they're not inclined to amplify the pain of loss with their own obsessive judgments. Maybe they  listen to music and just enjoy it. Maybe they play it for fun. Maybe they don't take a watch when they go running...

And while it's nice to rise above envy and appreciate greatness, is that what usually happens when we laud genius? Or is it more often an identification with greatness and the accompanying joy of smiting? Envy has the advantage of honesty. That's not you on that stage...

Which reminds me of an article I read at cracked.com the other day about four awesome rock stars who mind-bogglingly or whatever kicked some ass. The comments section, the bit that I read, was a bunch of "this ass-kicking reminds me of another ass-kicking that was even awesomer" and "oh, that ass-kicker is awesome." One video showed a drunk man who got on stage and tried to hug the Tool frontman, who apparently thought his mom was in the audience and would be really impressed if he showed his giant penis, which he did, but not really, when he put the fun-having drunk in a choke-hold and humiliated him for a minute or so while finishing the song. What a fine specimen. Cheers! Double-facebook like! That's me up there! Art uber alles! Entertain me, with me!...

Did you want me to use the teeth metaphor instead? I'm sorry...

Blah, blah, blah...

abfkabefa...

did you see how I controlled the presentation of my not caring?...

look, I'm not even capitalizing the first letter anymore...

impressed?...

Top runners are miserable. Artists are miserable. The superrich are miserable...

When I was in kindergarten, they had me doing math while the other kids were napping. I hated naps and liked math but I didn't like being different, above or below...

The first grade teacher gave S's for satisfactory and O's for outstanding. I got some S's. That first definitive rejection was brutal. I wanted Os but I didn't want other kids to not have Os. I wanted to not be rejected...

I joined the wrestling team in 2nd grade. The coach was a scary old bastard. He wanted volunteers to come up and get humiliated by him. "Boys, you kick ass like so and like so. You see the pain in his face? That is what you're going for." I didn't identify with him so I couldn't enjoy it...

The first match, the other team forfeited so we had a scrimmage instead and each of us wrestled a teammate. My opponent, who I knew pretty well, did some trash-talking. I pinned him in a few seconds. Adults were impressed...

Other matches, I generally didn't try. There was some vague sense, something I couldn't formulate, that went like this: "I got no beef with this guy. He doesn't deserve to lose. That's humiliating." I couldn't just make someone my enemy. I remember a few times realizing the other kid couldn't possibly be trying either...

Though one time, there was a big crowd for some reason, in our home gym, and I went up against an all-star type who outweighed me by 10 pounds. I tried, maybe because I knew I couldn't win. I lost. I later claimed that a bum ankle was to blame. Now I just remember to mention he outweighed me...

50 feet behind my house, a group of kids gathered. The older ones pitted me against another boy. Neither of us wanted to fight. They picked sides. Some thought I'd win, some thought he'd win. We wrestled. They wanted us to start punching. I don't remember if we did. I don't think we did. I remember it being a draw...

Flash forward to 22 year-old me, picking fights with strangers in Belgian bars...

Well, only a couple times and it never came to anything...

But the friends were impressed...

I've never had my ass kicked. Not really. Knock on teeth, this perfect grill. But no, don't do that. Please, it's all I have.

Snow days were the greatest thing. I didn't have to go to school and get my ass kicked...

By everything, because in school, you breathe submission, you breathe humiliation...

And now I've escaped all those institutions I used to retreat from, the ones that had me cowering in the dark. I outran them...

I work in my own house now. My first lesson starts at 11. I don't have a boss. No one seriously criticizes me and if they do, especially when I'm looking them in the face, my self-criticism is mostly proportionate to the amount of blame I actually consider myself to have, which is usually close to zero...

Which isn't to say the self-loathing is gone...

Oh, it's back there. I go in there when I dream now, apparently...

I spent two nights in the slammer once for not having an up-to-date visa. I looked everyone straight in the mouth. Those little cops. I didn't doubt myself for a second. I said "yeah, I'm an idiot for not renewing the thing but you're using a gazillion yen to lock up a peaceful, productive citizen you're just gunna let out anyway. Who are you protecting and serving here? What good is coming from this? Your systemic idiocy precedes and towers over my little flaws. I'm smarter than you. I know exactly why you're here and why you do what you do and how it's different than you think." But I said it nicely, somberly, and accompanied it with a ridiculous-from-some-angles hunger strike that was easy because I wasn't hungry anyway. And I made friends. I Zinned them. I ended up getting semi-apologies from a couple translators. They saw my noble suffering and felt guilty. I was their judge and teacher. The switcheroo. The gulag is different, of course...  

Am I bragging? Putting on a show? Funny how I was taught not to brag and yet at the same time trained to put on a show.

Back to a previous thing. I was saying I don't have bosses. The money is good, too. Enough that I feel bad about it, actually. The hours are excellent. I wake up when I want, unless the kids wake me. No alarm clocks, no hoping for snow days...

Reminds me of a line from the hero I admire and envy most, Conor O'Berst...

"my stray dog freedom"...

Ah, what to do?...

shit public grievers say

Imagine Americans were asked this question: "Is it wrong to kill children?"

Of course, the vast majority would say yes. Practically everyone will say they think it's wrong to kill children.

If you press further and ask: "What do you think of a person who sees that children have been killed and doesn't see it as a problem?"

A) that's despicable B) that's understandable, everyone has their own opinion C) they're right, it isn't a problem. One expects "A" would win in a landslide.

A third question then: "What of the person who makes excuses for the killers?"

And finally: "Would it be wrong to willingly fund a group of child killers?"

Clearly, the vast majority of Americans share my view that killing children is terrible and that anger is an appropriate response and that it's wrong to makes excuses for or fund the operations of child killers. And since these same people themselves do all these things when it comes to their government killing children in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, we can assume that they're a bunch of self-loathers wearing hairshirts and the like. Ha! Did you know your government has been killing children every month of every year since as long as anyone can remember? Ah, ah, ah, save it. We said no excuses, remember? Anyway, here's shit public grievers say (please use stoned college kid voice):

you guys, I'm really concerned about this...

that monster will rot in hell...

there's no cure for evil...

hey, I'm totally bummed about this whole thing, the kids, ohh those kids, I can't watch, you know?...

God is waiting for them in heaven...

I hugged my kids today...

heroes...

ohhhhhh, it's terrrrrrrible!...

I've got some deep thoughts about this whole thing, what if we just...

we need to sit down in, like, the national kitchen and have a national conversation about this...

hey, you guys? we need to invest in mental healthcare...

responsibility...

moral decay...

intermittent explosive disorder...

guns don't kill people, people do...

people with guns kill people...

people with guns kill other people with guns...or not...

a guy with a knife in China attacked a bunch of kids but was not very efficient because, like, anecdotally, not having guns saves lives...

a good ol' American killed a would-be child-killer with a gun...with a gun...so anecdotally, having guns saves lives...

I'm going to forget about this in approximately...what were we talking about?

hey, what are we gunna do about Iran's nukes [sic]? national kitchen time, guys. ok, we've got two choices...sanctions or bomb them back to the stone age...

Hey, do they have kids in Iran?  

you fix broken kids with science, duh

Aside from the public displays of grieving, how is America talking about this school rampage problem? Not living in the U.S., I'm no expert on that topic, but the soccer mom article I discussed yesterday was posted with vigorous approval by several facebook friends of differing political persuasions. Two conservative Catholics, a Krugmanian/Obamist/pragmatist economist, a Democracy Now anti-imperialist Quaker, and a couple others. So that's my frame of reference.

Part of the appeal of that post is its strong emphasis on how much we love our kids. Especially now, it's nice to hear that sentiment. It reminds us how good we are.

Another appealing element is this -- "we love our kids so much we don't to see them in prison." Good people don't want to see their kids in prison. Good people want to see their kids fixed. Very nice. I'm feeling good about myself. Ahhh...

Oh, you can fix broken kids, you say? Why yes, and that's the main appeal of the article. Importantly, like every political idea in recent decades that has any chance of being acted on, this approach doesn't require you to give up anything. You just throw money at the problem and it goes away. And when it doesn't, you did your best. Or so you convince yourself.

The gun people -- both the arms manufacturers and the frontier fantasists -- like this idea because it shifts the debate away from guns. The healthcare industry likes it, obviously. If the prison industry feels threatened, they shouldn't. If anything, improperly dealing with mental health issues is good for business in the long run. Politicians should like it because they can look like they're tackling a problem while scoring points with the healthcare industry. The education industry, the violence industry, all those companies whose advertisements aim to break down children's fragile sense of self in order to fill them back up with stuff-you-buy (which is to say, any corporation that sells anything to kids)...nobody has to change a thing! It's a win-win-win-win...lose. The "lose" represents the kids of course, but who gives a shit about them?

tell me what to feel

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it? 

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

--60 Minutes (5/12/96)

In 1996, Americans were told that they were responsible for the deaths of half a million children. What they weren't told, and this is very important, was that they should be upset about it. So they weren't. "Hey guys, is this a thing? Should we...? Touchdown! Boobs! Woohoo!" So that's how that went.

If, instead, media, who are essentially our tribal leaders slash opinion establishers, had sent different signals --these are our children, our children, our children -- the reaction would have resembled recent reactions to child slaughter, with all the requisite wailing and gnashing.

Media didn't, of course, and this because those children weren't ours, tribally speaking. Those Iraqi children "we" killed were enemies, but it's too awkward to say that. And just as you can't be both a lion and a giraffe, you can't be both an enemy and a child. So they were filed under "enemy" by tribal leaders and the forgetting is what followed.

i woke up to an outpouring of digital grief over slain children so...

...of course, i'm glad to finally have this discussion of drone control.

the war on not christmas

Sweet baby Jesus the war on Not Christmas is heating up. Not Christmas is trembling in the corner as Father Christmas, having broken and entered, romps around a giant nativity scene bellowing, off-pitch, about a child who just saw a fat burglar in a red pajama suit kissing her mom. Egg nog in hand, he clumsily shifts to a different track, warning that he sees you when you're sleeping, knows when you're hiding from him under the bed. He's inside your head, along with Jesus. He'll punish or reward you based on how you conform to his wishes. He doesn't mention how his offerings of sugar and plastic are made by Indonesian child slaves. That's too obviously evil.

Whoops, did I say the war on Not Christmas is heating up? I meant flaring up, because Christmas is a hemorrhoid on the ass of the universe, at most. This entire scene is intra-hemorrhoidal. Not christmas only exists in relation to Christmas. That ass will heal, friends.

Anyway, how about that war on Muslims, a war that's actually a war, with bombs and whatforth?

balance

There's a beefy brawler, some kind of pro fighter, encroaching on your wheelchair-bound grandma's property. He's all "I'm taking this, ya mind?" She's like "mmm, yeah?" and he's like "go fuck yahself!" He comes and goes as he pleases and tells her which parts of the house she can use and when. Can I use the bathroom now? Maybe. Sometimes she gathers the courage to spit at him, defiantly, knowing she stands no chance, knowing the payback will make her regret it, physically. Self-respect is worth it. He beats the shit out of her to remind her who's in charge.

The New York Times reports: "Extremist grandma spits on neighbor. Trying to work things out. Tenous situation. No end in sight. A standoff. Peace negotiators on their way. When will the fighting stop?"